Unwholesome
by Flanna
Summary: Andrew reflects on his relationship with Warren. Takes place pre-Dead Things. (slash)


Title: Unwholesome  
  
Author: Flannery  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Pairing: Warren/Andrew  
  
Summary: Andrew reflects on his relationship with Warren.  
  
Notes: These aren't my characters, and I'm not profiting from their abuse. I mean use. Feedback is wonderful stuff, and it's good karma.  
  
* * *  
  
He makes Andrew sick. Sometimes he just wants to lurch into the bathroom and fall to the floor and lay in a cold sweat until the feeling passes. Other times, he feels he'd like to slit his wrists and bleed himself out onto the dirty white linoleum of the bathroom floor.  
  
Andrew likes drama. He likes watching other people squirm and thrash about in their daily lives when something goes wrong.  
  
But he can't deal with his own drama. It's not easy for Andrew to put things into perspective. Sometimes he's able to excuse or justify difficulties as existing to further the plot. Foreshadowing to some greater disaster, maybe: the butterfly's flight that leads to the hurricane a world away.  
  
It's been sixteen minutes since Warren stormed out and Andrew can't imagine feeling any worse. He wanted to dry heave, wail, pick up the phone and call Warren and yell and then hang up -- anything, he wanted to do anything but just sit numb in the doorway to the bathroom, scratching mildew off the base of the sink with his fingernail.  
  
They'd fought before. Stupid things. Usually the fights were one-sided, with Warren just needing a punching bag on which to take out his anger. Not a literal punching bag, of course -- that might actually be less of a torture. Warren couldn't fight with fists and feet, but he knew how to sling words around. If he hit Andrew, it probably wouldn't even bruise the skin. But when he insulted Andrew, it cut to the bone.  
  
"If we fail, Andrew, it'll be your goddamn fault!"   
  
Andrew leaned his head back on the door frame and tried not to focus on the fight. He couldn't stop it. The words haunted him and they were all on which he had to focus.  
  
"You're so fucking needy." Warren had paced the room, fidgeting with some gadget in his hands. "I should be working on plans, but I spend all my time coddling you so you don't feel like the little lame-ass loser you are. Do you see me fucking Jonathan? Do you? Jonathan doesn't need an esteem boost. Maybe I'm leaving behind the wrong person."  
  
The suppressed sound that came from Andrew's wet lips was like a "meep." That hurt. That hurt worse than Warren could've known. He knew Warren couldn't realize how much he harmed Andrew when he said such terrible things. Warren did care for him, and once when Andrew said they should break up, Warren begged him to stay.  
  
"You're the one," Warren had said, choking on tears that never fell, "You're the one I've waited my entire life to meet."  
  
The kind words came much more often than the negative ones. The kind gestures -- cuddling on the beanbag chairs in the lair, kissing in the back of the van, fucking slowly and quietly in Warren's bed -- all happened on a daily basis, compared to a week or more between stinging verbal attacks.  
  
His relationship with Warren was far from healthy. This Andrew realized. No one knew -- no one could know -- the things Warren told him in the dark. The beautiful things he whispered when he was touching Andrew the way Andrew touched himself.   
  
"We'll fly away. To, like, London, or to Paris, some city like that, where we can just get lost in the crowds." Warren's promises always tasted of whiskey.  
  
"What if we're caught?" Andrew would ask him.  
  
And Warren would say: "We won't get caught."  
  
Then Andrew would feel a stab in his belly, because Andrew was quick to panic, and he'd say this: "What if we get killed?"  
  
Warren stroked Andrew's hair, kissed him next to his lips and said, "Then your name will be on my lips as I die."  
  
It's corny and it's not even a nice thought, but Andrew loved to hear Warren tell him things that made his heart burst. Andrew adores the cliche. It's just not as romantic if it can't be said in black and white, twenty feet high on a cinema screen.  
  
Andrew wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. His eyes burned from watering, were raw from being rubbed. His chest felt empty, like it'd collapse under its own weight, implode into dry dust. He wanted to imagine Warren finding him here with his chest cavity caved in. Or with slit wrists. Or just crying, miserable, with pink eyes and a snotty nose and white knuckles and mildew under his fingers.  
  
Another thing Andrew realized is this: Epic romances never end in "happily ever after." They end in tragic death, blood and flame, profound suffering and a broken heart that lasts forever. Warren was his first and last love; he'd condemned himself to never love again after Warren.  
  
One leg was now numb, so Andrew sprawled out with his head in the hallway and his body across the cold bathroom floor. For a while, he might have slept, or maybe he just stared at the backs of his eyelids. Feeling miserable can exhaust a man, especially one as fragile as Andrew.  
  
This is how he wakes: a hand on the side of his face, stroking away carpet creases on his red cheeks. Warren knelt beside him, looking down into his face, expression both concerned and regretful and also proud and indifferent.  
  
It's going to end in tragedy, Andrew wanted to tell him. "Hi," he said instead.  
  
* * * 


End file.
